Exit Lines
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Set after Kaddish. Events stir unhappy memories for Scully. Mulder knows how to makes things better. Hints of Mulder/Scully.


Scully has never thought of herself as a true romantic. She is the kind of relentlessly practical woman for whom romantic movies are an exercise in reducing the narrative to individual clichés and stereotypes. She thinks flowers are too idealistic a gift; once given, they proceed to die silently, a statement gift rather than one of lasting value. No, she is a little cynical about the whole thing, thinking Valentine's day an expensive farce. It's not that she doesn't believe in love; she is quite sure that it exists, although she would not deign to apply the theory to her own failed relationships. Lust, of course, and a certain confused, passionate affection that she had supposed at the time must be love of sorts. But, on examining the evidence with a clear head (and indeed heart) as only hindsight can provide, not love. Sometimes it's hard to be completely sure that such a thing exists when it seems in such scarce supply.

Her need for empirical evidence is ever in conflict with her personal faith in things unseen, and Mulder is inordinately fond of pointing out the perceived hypocrisy in this. And at times, though she prefers not to admit it, this paradox troubles her. How can it be that she is so unsure of love, a force she cannot see, or run tests for but nonetheless one to which millions personally verify their experiences of? And yet she believes so unfalteringly that the benevolent force of God, unknowable but tangible, watches over them. She scoffs openly when Mulder starts spinning wild tales of pyrokinetics and little grey men and yes, of course, of golems. But nevertheless they have an understanding; for all his scolding, and for all of her scorn, they each realise that the belief of the other is not so removed from their own.

They step out of the synagogue and into the cold winter sunshine. Scully blinks as if newly awoken. Her clothes smell faintly of incense and dry earth, a stale smell she associates with Mass. Ariel is a few paces ahead, weeping freely in her dusty bridal gown. Her tears glisten on her cheeks. She has been married and widowed in the space of an afternoon, and although Scully wonders whether one can truly consider oneself married when the groom is little more than a clay sculpture (and even that, she reminds herself, is so much conjecture) she can sense the woman's grief as if it were something physical.

"I'm going to recommend that she sees a grief counsellor," she tells Mulder almost conversationally.

Mulder raises his eyebrows. "You kidding?" he replies, turning to face her. He is a long silhouette in the red sunlight. His face is smeared with dirt, his suit rumpled.

Scully sighs, placing her hands on her hips. "She's had an extremely traumatic experience, Mulder," she reasons, a little tired of playing the straight man to Mulder's crazy turns.

He smiles, that infuriating smile he adopts when he thinks he's one-upped her. "Don't you see, Scully? That ritual we just saw. That was closure."

She raises a wary eyebrow but doesn't respond, prompting him to explain.

"She had to marry him before she could let him go," he elucidates. He looks over at Ariel and Scully follows his gaze. She is staring defiantly up at the red sun, her face turned up to it as it sinks slowly into the earth, and although she is still weeping there is a conviction about her that wasn't there before. Her eyes are bright with tears and what looks to Scully like relief.

Scully thinks back, a little unwillingly, to the death of her sister some time ago. About the way she had felt when Mulder had told her about Cardinal's death. That it wasn't justice enough. That nothing ever could be. The awful ache she had felt deep in her heart, like a rotted tooth, when she realised that even the ultimate punishment wasn't really punishment at all. Maybe, she thinks, watching Ariel pray aloud as the sun slinks behind the buildings, she had gone about her grief in the wrong way.

Mulder quirks a smile at her. "Daydreaming?"

She tries to smile back, but it feels like more of a constipated grimace. "Uh. Kind of. Just remembering something."

He nods at this, reacting with remarkable sensitivity to her tone of voice. It's a trait of his she's enormously thankful for, his ability to sense when she doesn't want to talk about something. Even moreso when she realises that, on this occasion, he isn't interested in pushing her for answers she doesn't feel like giving. Instead, he studies the scrapes and grazes on his palms, wincing theatrically. The show is for her benefit. It's his way of giving her a little more time with her thoughts.

She has never really let her sister go. That much is true. Even now, in her mind, Melissa is an eternally wronged soul begging for justice, and now Scully wonders how much of that is her own will projected outwards, with poor lost Melissa unable to protest. Hadn't Melissa essentially been a pacifist in life? Her fingers travel down to the gold cross she wears around her neck, emblematic of a church that is sometimes more her mother's than her own. Missy hadn't been religious, but the crosses had been special to both of them.

She glances at Ariel again, who looks incongruous in the New York street, a sad bride in a dirty white dress. She had married Isaac knowing that she would lose him soon afterwards. What courage she must have! To sanctify her love even though the gesture was ultimately a token one. Her last memories of Isaac would be of love, of a brief but intense glimmer of the happiness they ought to have shared. The brutal injustice of his murder would always be secondary to that moment. Perhaps Mulder was right. That was her closure.

"Ariel?" Mulder calls. The woman turns, an almost spectral figure now in the darkening street. She smiles knowingly; it is time to go.

"You ready, Scully?" he asks her hesitantly. She can see from his stance that he is prepared to wait if she still needs a little time. It occurs to her then that perhaps that's all love is, at its most basic. The willingness to give another what they need, no matter how painful or hard or even just inconvenient that might be. Even Isaac, with his debatable lack of sentience, had supposedly let Ariel erase the aleph, making 'truth' at last into 'death', even though it would mean his own end. And Ariel had let him go, even though it had hurt her deeply. It strikes Scully that she finds this most melancholy of love stories deeply romantic in a way that movies and flowers just don't capture; pure, true romance, the kind that you just can't capture in a gift. Perhaps she has underestimated her own belief in the romantic.

She smiles wanly at Mulder. "Yeah," she says. He looks at her knowingly. She knows he'll give her all the time in the world, but right now Ariel ought to be her focus.

Mulder nods. "Okay, let's get going," he says, squeezing her shoulder gently as he passes by. The comfort of contact soothes Scully's frayed nerves a little, bringing her back into reality, into this world, where Melissa is dead and she is very much alive. Where Mulder is shepherding Ariel into the waiting car, offering her words of comfort in that low, mumbling voice he adopts at times of sadness.

When the car has turned the corner, Mulder comes back. "Can I drive you home?" he asks.

Scully thinks about telling him no, thank you. She briefly considers the possibility of going home alone, but the idea depresses her; she finds herself wanting Mulder's company, the distraction of his irreverent anecdotes. "Sure," she says, and he visibly brightens when she accepts. And why not? She feels brighter herself.

"Pizza and beer?" he suggests, eyebrows raised.

Scully feels her mouth curl into a smile. "I'd like that," she says. Mulder grins in response, and suddenly she feels so much more at ease. As if the world is a better place now Mulder has suggested pizza and beer. It's such a small pleasure but it's exactly what she needs right now.

Mulder opens the passenger door for her. The car smells of his cologne and the warm familiarity of it comforts her. Onwards to junk food and nonsense conversation, she thinks, recalling a time not so long ago when both of those things would have seemed repellent to her. Yet now, she can't think of anything she'd rather do.

* * *

_"There's a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out."_

— _Ellen Goodman_


End file.
